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IHE has the details. The students are clearly in the wrong. The professor's troubles started earlier this year when he challenged, correctly, a new policy requiring faculty to report on their progress with regard to "racial diversity." (Thanks to Jake Fraser for the pointer to this.)
Is Evergreen State crazy? The University President, as quoted by IHE, said the right things, which is a hopeful sign. Comments open for more details, links, information about the school.
I went to the Evergreen State College (TESC) for one year (1996-97) and it is indeed a very strange school, though probably not crazy. There are no official course requirement or majors, so humanities students are largely self-guided after the first year. (Sciences are obviously more structured, and organic farming, environmental biology, etc. are very popular there.) The school was founded in the late sixties by expats from Oberlin and suchlike schools. (Two of my professors were founding faculty, former deans, etc.) The school is made up almost exclusively of hippy-types and leftists. (As I recall, every day at 4:20 it was a quiet as a Sunday morning for a bit…) The activist element on campus has spearheaded controversial moves in the past, such as the selection of Mumia Abul Jamal for commencement speaker in 1997 (I think it was). The school is actually part of the Washington state school system, which meant that, for years and years after its improbable founding, the school was perpetually in danger of being shut down by the state government, but has managed to survive and establish its little niche. It doesn't surprise me that something such as this would happen there. (And one of the student commentators is telling the truth about the white supremacist presence. Olympia has had a long-standing and significant skinhead population. It seems to me that professors such as the one threatened are quite rare at the school and probably will go extinct, regardless what the President says. It is a strange, self-selecting school, and as this new form of activism entrenches itself (even if it has a bit of a Thermidor), I think these more old-fashioned liberals will elect not to teach there. I loved it there, by the way, but left because it has no foreign language departments (or didn't back then).
Thanks for this illuminating context!
The opening of the IHE article is incredibly depressing:
"In the heated debates of campus politics these days, it is not unusual for some groups (on or off campus) to demand the firing of a faculty member."
The fact that the students are presenting themselves as responding to racism from Weinstein is amazing. These kids have not been served well by their education on race and critical thinking. And the escalating show of force and verbal outrage is worrisome. If displays like this are any indication, these students will be dysfunctional members of the professional and social organizations they will participate in as adults.
According to the IHE piece, Evergreen's president is responding to this fiasco by pushing through changes that include the following: mandatory diversity and cultural sensitivity training for all faculty members; creation of an equity/multicultural center; and the hiring of a vice president or vice provost who will focus on equity and diversity issues. Those modifications to the institutional structure of the college read like they were pulled from a playbook for expanding administrative bloat and increasing the administration's control over the faculty. What the hell is going on in the academy that there isn't monumental pushback against these episodes?
At any rate, there's a discussion of Weinstein's treatment over at the Heterodox Academy, with some suggestions about how professors can respond to situations like this.
http://heterodoxacademy.org/2017/05/27/this-weeks-witch-hunt/
One of the comments there included a link to a more detailed breakdown of events.
https://www.reddit.com/r/KotakuInAction/comments/6dk0s4/ethics_the_real_story_about_bret_weinstein/
Weinstein, himself a progressive, had been objecting to some of the proposals on racial diversity and equity that Evergreen was instituting. Whatever one ultimately thinks of the proposals, these comments read as eminently reasonable things to consider. They do not in the least merit the label 'racist', and they paint a pretty ugly picture of the political background to these protests. From
"Weinstein expressing opposition to the proposal by the council had this to say “From what I have read, I do not believe this proposal will function to the net benefit of Evergreen’s students of color, in the present, or in the future. Whatever type of vehicle it is, I hope we can find a way to discuss this proposal on its merits, before it moves farther down the line. I am concerned that we are becoming a college where such things can neither be said, nor heard, and I know that I am not alone in this sentiment.”
…
“If I was not yet converted, or worse, were I still a visitor, speaking as I am now doing would be a threat to my ability to stay on at the college.”
…
“Numerous staff members have told me they have experienced retribution for expressing opinions at odds with the conventional wisdom, and that they fear for their jobs.”
…
“People are afraid of attacks on their reputations, their opportunities at Evergreen, and their ability to function in the wider world. These fears are about real and important harms, and the fact that these fears are widespread strongly suggests that our college’s culture of open, collaborative inquiry is in danger of being lost.”
Here is Weinstein's account, published in the Wall Street Journal (behind a paywall): https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-campus-mob-came-for-meand-you-professor-could-be-next-1496187482.
His story seems a bit incomplete, since he notes that several weeks elapsed between his offending emails and the protests that broke out, but doesn't really explain the timing himself, either. The interesting part (unsubstantiated but not prima facie implausible) is that the "equity" plans to which he objected are part of an administrative power grab, and thus that the student protests were implicitly approved of by the president as playing into his agenda. He doesn't offer any real proof for this claim, however. The article also includes a bit more information about the school.
As I said above, it seems to me that the likely outcome of all of this is that more old-fashioned liberals or progressives will probably choose not to teach there in the future. If the president's equity plans are implemented, it seems that the hiring process could be used to prevent the hiring of any also.
Brian, surely you should revise the statement "the president … said the right things", in light of this: http://www.cooperpointjournal.com/2017/05/27/george-bridges-statement-in-response-to-student-demands-delivered-in-the-longhouse-on-friday-may-26/
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